ENDEMIC DISEASE AFFECTING PROGRESS OF NATIONS. 
" We now come face to lace with that profoundly Interesting 
subject, the political, economical, and historical significance of this 
great disease. We know that malaria must have existed in Greece 
ever since the time of Hippocrates, about 400 B. C. What effect 
has it had on the life of the country? In prehistoric times Greece 
w a- certainly peopled by successive wave- of Aryan Invaders from the 
north -probably a fair-haired people — who made it what it became, 
who conquered Persia and Egypt, and who created the sciences, 
arts, and philosophies which we are only developing further to- 
day. That race reached its climax of development at the time of 
Pericles. Those great and beautiful valleys were thickly peopled 
by a civilization which in some ways has not been excelled. 
Everywhere there were cities, temples, oracles, arts, philosophies, 
and a population vigorous and well trained in arms. Lake Kopais. 
now almost deserted, was surrounded by towns whose massive work- 
remain to this day. Suddenly, however, a blight fell over all. Was 
it dne to internecine conflict or to foreign conquest? Scarcely; for 
history shows that war burns and ravages, but does not annihilate. 
Thebes was thrice destroyed, but thrice rebuilt. Or was it due to 
some cause, entering furtively and gradually sapping away the 
energies of the race by attacking the rural population, by slaying 
the new-born infant, by seizing the rising generation, and especially 
by killing out the fair-haired descendant of the original sett lei--. 
Leaving behind chiefly the more immunised and darker children of 
fcheir captives, won by tin 1 sword from Asia and Africa? * * * 
" T can not imagine Lake Kopais, in its present highly malarious 
condition, to have been thickly peopled by a vigorous race; nor, on 
looking at those wonderful figured tombstones at Athens, can I 
imagine that the healthy and powerful people represented upon 
them could have ever passed through the ansemic and splenomegalous 
infancy (to coin a word) caused by widespread malaria. Well, I 
venture only to suggest the hypothesis, and must leave it to scholars 
for confirmation or rejection. Of one thing I am confident, that 
causes Mich as malaria, dysentery, and intestinal entozoa must have 
modified history to a much greater extent than we conceive. Our 
historians and economists do not seem even to have considered the 
matter. It is true that they speak of epidemic diseases, but the 
endemic diseases are really those of the greatest importance. * * * 
"The whole life of Greece must suffer from this weight, which 
crushes its rural energies. Where the children suffer so much, how 
can the country create that fresh blood which keeps a nation young? 
Bui for a hamlet here and there, those famous valleys are deserted. 
I saw from a spur of Ilelikon the sun setting upon Parnassus, Apollo 
-inking, as he was wont to do. towards his own fane at Delphi, and 
pouring a flood of light over the great Kopaik Plain. But it seemed 
